The Unnecessary War

Churchill's warnings about the danger
of the new Nazi regime in Germany initially fell on deaf ears.
In 1938 Britain and Germany almost went to war over Hitler's
desire to annex part of Czechoslovakia. Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain flew to Munich to secure a guarantee that there would
be no further German aggression. Churchill was critical of the
policy of appeasement and broadcast directly to the United States,
appealing for greater American involvement in Europe. When Hitler
occupied Prague and the Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia,
Churchill's predictions were seen to be coming true.

In September 1939 Germany invaded Poland. The attack touched off
the world struggle that Churchill would later call “The Unnecessary
War” because he felt a firm policy toward aggressor nations after
World War I would have prevented the conflict. Chamberlain brought
Churchill into government again as First Lord of the Admiralty.
Churchill became Prime Minister on May 10, 1940, the day Hitler
launched his invasion of France, Belgium, and Holland. During the
tense months that followed, Britain stood alone with her Empire
and Commonwealth, surviving the Battle of Britain and the Blitz.
Churchill's speeches and broadcasts carried a message of determination
and defiance around the globe.

Hitler

Churchill spent much of the 1930s warning about the dangers
of Nazi Germany and working on a biography of his illustrious
ancestor, the first Duke of Marlborough. The Duke had led
a coalition against a dominant and aggressive European superpower
(Louis XIV's France). This cartoon shows that others saw
a parallel in Churchill's similar approach toward Germany's
Adolf Hitler. Churchill also was concerned about Hitler's
anti-Semitic actions and rhetoric. This letter to Churchill
from a fellow Conservative member of Parliament, Robert Boothby,
describes Boothby's meeting with Hitler and asks about “the
Jewish question.” It reveals concern about the Nazis, and
perhaps something about latent anti-Semitism in the British
establishment—a view not shared by Churchill. Churchill
later arranged for a similar meeting with Hitler in Germany
in 1932, but the Nazi leader failed to appear.

The 1930s

In the 1930s, while out of power and with the international
scene becoming ever more threatening, Churchill began his
multi-volume study of the English-speaking peoples as a way
to trace the emergence of concepts of freedom and law. This
passage from the fourth volume of The Great Democracies reflects
Churchill's lifelong interest in the American Civil War.
Early in 1937, Churchill wrote to his friend, Bernard Baruch,
giving his views on the Abdication Crisis. When Edward VIII
was pressured to resign the throne over his determination
to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson, Churchill
was one of the few who defended the King. Churchill's support
of the King was damaging to him—he was shouted down in Parliament
and appeared out of touch with mainstream politics.

“We must arm”

In this key page from Churchill's notes for his broadcast
to the United States in the aftermath of the Munich Crisis,
his plea for greater American involvement in Europe is set
out in his distinctive “psalm form.” Churchill always spoke
with a full set of notes, even though he committed most of
the content to his remarkable memory.

Phony War

Britain and France declared war on Germany on September
3, 1939. On the same day, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
brought Churchill back into government as First Lord of the
Admiralty. Churchill threw himself tirelessly into all aspects
of war policy and direction. This letter, written to his
chief during a prolonged lull in the ground action known
as the “Phony War,” shows his aggressive approach. In a November
12 broadcast speech, he taunted the “boastful and bullying” Nazis,
led by “that evil man,” Hitler. The editorial cartoon, shown
here, depicts Churchill and a German official goading each
other over the German border defense system called the West
Wall.

The Threat of Invasion

After the fall of France to Germany in June 1940, Britain
faced the possibility of invasion. Germany, however, was
unable to achieve the necessary air superiority, and the
planned invasion, code-named sealion, was postponed. By October
Churchill quipped, “We are waiting for the long-promised
invasion. So are the fishes.” This photograph shows the new
Prime Minister inspecting his coastal defenses during the
summer of 1940, when landings seemed imminent.

Prime Minister

On May 10, 1940, as the Germans were beginning to attack
the British and French ground forces arrayed against them,
Churchill became Prime Minister and Minister of Defense.
He later wrote, “I felt as if I were walking with Destiny,
and that all my past life had been but a preparation for
this hour and for this trial.” This cartoon shows the British
national symbol John Bull handing him “complete control,” at
least temporarily.

“This was their finest hour”

This is Churchill's draft for one of his most famous pieces
of oratory. His speech of June 18, 1940, delivered first
in the House of Commons and then broadcast to the Nation,
occurred against the backdrop of the fall of France, one
of the darkest moments in British history. Churchill did
not flinch from admitting the severity of the situation,
but he turned it into a roar of determination and defiance.

Mobilizing the English Language

Churchill's inspirational wartime speeches rank among the
greatest delivered by any leader in history. He carefully
crafted the rhetorical flourishes in addresses that he broadcast
to the nation over the radio, to members of Parliament, and
to a wide variety of groups. Ten years after World War II
ended, Churchill said of his wartime role that it was Britain
that “had the lion's heart,” he merely “had the luck to be
called upon to give the roar.”

September 1940

September 1940 was a key month for Churchill as this schedule
shows. The Royal Air Force had managed to hold its own against
the powerful German Luftwaffe, winning the Battle
of Britain. But Hitler now changed tactics and began the
wholesale bombing of London and other civilian centers. Churchill's
engagements included, numerous cabinet meetings, speeches
before the House of Commons, a radio broadcast, and more.

Befriendus Leaselendus

In this caricature, Churchill, with cigar, is shown as a
puffin, “Perpetually carrying a stump in its mouth.” A reference
to recent defeats by British forces in Greece implies that
it was drawn in 1941, when Churchill's attempt to stop the
Nazis from overrunning that nation met with disaster. Other
references are to Churchill's beloved British Empire—“Range:
The sun never sets,—as we all jolly well know.”—and to
the recently passed Lend-Lease Act, which provided American
assistance to the United Kingdom.

The Destruction of Coventry

The German raid on the English city of Coventry (November
14-15, 1940) left 380 people dead, 865 were inured, and the
center of the city was devastated. The attack shocked the
American public. In later years Churchill would be accused—falsely,
according to many scholars—of deliberately failing to protect
Coventry in order to protect secret intelligence sources
that had provided advance knowledge of the attack. This photograph
shows Churchill walking through the ruins of Coventry's fourteenth-century
cathedral.

Coping With the Blitz

The Ministry of Information distributed this poster in an
effort to help the people of Coventry deal with the severe
damage that resulted from the German bombing raid. One week
after the attack residents were told how to obtain—and offer—assistance
and warned against attempts to flee to neutral Ireland. They
were also told that there was “no ground for believing that
large numbers of bodies remain to be recovered.” Such tales
were “pure rumor,” the notice stated, “and to believe it
is playing Hitler's game.”

Churchill in an Air Raid

Attempting to bomb Britain into submission, the German Luftwaffe attacked
the city of Ramsgate while Churchill was visiting in August
1940. Taking cover in an underground shelter, he exchanged
his trademark civilian hat for a steel helmet. The city's
mayor forced him to discard his cigar, eliciting the rueful
response, “There goes another good one.”

1940

Cartoonist Herbert Block (“Herblock”) summed up the year
1940 optimistically with implied hopes for victory under
the leadership of Churchill and Roosevelt. Shown in this
sketch are British successes in the Mediterranean at Oran
(against the Vichy French fleet), at Taranto (against the
Italian fleet), in the skies by the Royal Air Force, and
in North Africa. Also depicted are Italy's failed attempted
invade of Greece, the peacetime military conscription act
passed by the U.S. Congress, and the supplies shipped to
Britain from America.

An American Connection

The fall of France, in June 1940,
left Britain in a desperate situation. Threatened with a Nazi invasion
and with his country under savage attack, Churchill was determined
to obtain assistance and eventually a declaration of war against
Germany and its allies from the United States.

Churchill intensified his contacts with President Franklin D.
Roosevelt, who had started corresponding with him even before Churchill
became Prime Minister. Churchill also welcomed the American supplies,
both military and civilian, that Roosevelt had provided through
such measures as the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941. Many Americans,
however, were reluctant to enter the conflict, and Roosevelt felt
compelled to adopt a gradual approach toward full belligerency.

In June 1941 the immediate pressure on the British eased somewhat
after Hitler attacked the Soviet Union. Two months later Churchill
and Roosevelt met in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, to formulate
a joint military strategy and a statement of war aims,—the Atlantic
Charter. With less success, they tried to work out a plan to prevent
Germany's ally, Japan, from entering the war.

Churchill-Roosevelt Messages

In September 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt began
one of the most remarkable correspondence in history by sending
a personal letter to Churchill, then still First Lord of
the Admiralty. Across the years the total number of messages
would grow to 1,949. Although this cable was the second one
that Churchill sent back to Roosevelt, its substance had
been communicated in a telephone call made earlier. It concerned
fears of a German plot to sink a ship filled with Americans
and then to blame the incident on the British.

“An inspiration”

President Roosevelt wrote this letter to Churchill in January
1941, quoting from the Longfellow poem “The Building of the
Ship.” It was then hand-delivered to the British Prime Minister
by Wendell Wilkie, Roosevelt's Republican opponent in the
1940 Presidential election. Churchill, desperate for U.S.
support, found the letter “an inspiration” and told Roosevelt
that he would have it framed. The letter hung for a long
time at Chartwell, Churchill's home, hence it has faded from
the original green of White House stationery to brown.

“Give us the tools, and we will finish the job”

In this famous speech broadcast over the BBC, Churchill
recites the poem included in President Roosevelt's recent
letter—Longfellow's “The Building of a Ship.” Churchill
ends this broadcast with an explicit message to Roosevelt
in the heartfelt plea, “Give us the tools, and we will finish
the job.”

Aid to Britain

In 1941 President Roosevelt faced a dilemma: should the
United States short change its own armed forces in order
to help a nation that might capitulate to the Nazis? To answer
that question, and to facilitate the flow of aid if (as it
turned out) surrender seemed unlikely, he sent two personal
representatives to Churchill—Harry Hopkins and W. Averell
Harriman. In this letter, which shows the closeness of their
relationship, Harriman argues that Britain is not adequately
molding American public opinion. Churchill's handwritten
reply invites him to draft a solution.

“We do not feel alone”

Moved by the suffering, endurance, and courage displayed
by the residents of Bristol during an air raid that took
place while Churchill and Harriman were visiting there, Harriman
made an anonymous donation to a relief fund. In this thank
you note Clementine Churchill wrote of her hope that “all
this pain and grief” might “bring our two countries permanently
together.” “Anyhow,” she concluded, “whatever happens we
do not feel alone any more.”

U.S. Neutrality and Isolationism

Roosevelt had great difficulty persuading many Americans
to provide assistance to the British. Isolationists, in particular,
were quick to demand that the United States should avoid
what they felt was a foreign entanglement that could lead
to war. The Citizens National Keep America Out of War Committee
distributed this flyer to raise funds and promote its cause.
It urged people to apply political pressure on Congress and
to demand that motion picture theater owners not show war
films.

Churchill Views the Devastation

In May 1941, during what turned out to be the last major
attack of the Blitz, German bombs destroyed the debating
chamber of the House of Commons. A member of Parliament told
Churchill not to be distressed by the results stating, “Such
ruins are good assets: all round the globe, and especially
in America.” This photograph was republished shortly before
Churchill's death.

Supplies via Africa

The German U-boat campaign and uncertain weather in the
North Atlantic posed difficulties for sending American aircraft
to the British forces fighting in the eastern Mediterranean.
This letter concerns the routes available for shipment through
neutral airspace to the jumping-off point for the South Atlantic
route. Presidential advisor Averell Harriman solved the problem
by arranging to have American pilots fly the planes to Natal,
on the Brazilian coast, and from there to Bathurst, in Gambia,
Africa—the shortest route across the ocean.

American B-17s for the RAF

The two photographs taken in the summer of 1941, displayed
here, show Churchill's recognizable figure as he watches
the arrival of the first B-17 “Flying Fortress” and as he
inspects an American M-3 tank. Even though the U.S. was desperately
trying to build up its military forces throughout 1941, Roosevelt
decided to give the British models of the United States'
most advanced weapons. Military aid to Britain was greatly
facilitated by the Lend-Lease Act of March 11, 1941, in which
Congress authorized the sale, lease, transfer, or exchange
of arms and supplies to “any country whose defense the president
deems vital to the defense of the United States.”

Americans Meet With the British Chiefs of
Staff

Throughout 1940 and 1941 Churchill attempted to win the
confidence of Americans by demonstrating his trust in them.
As this secret record shows, he invited presidential advisors
Averell Harriman and Harry Hopkins to meet with Britain's
highest military leaders. Outlining his views on strategy,
with an eye toward securing as much American participation
as possible, Churchill reassured his guests “that the Japanese
would not enter the war until they were sure that we were
beaten. They did not want to fight the United States and
the British Empire together.”

A Secret Meeting with President Roosevelt

In this letter King George VI grants permission for his
Prime Minister to leave the country in order to attend a
secret meeting with President Roosevelt off the coast of
Newfoundland. The journey by sea to the Atlantic meeting
was clearly dangerous, and measures had to be put in place
to provide for continued government during Churchill's absence
and in case of his failure to return.

On Board HMS Prince of Wales

Churchill's trip to and from Newfoundland involved some
risk. Submarines and German surface raiders prowled the Atlantic
and, closer to Europe, there was always the possibility of
long-range German air attack. Risking the wrath of isolationists
in the United States, the Americans sent two U.S. destroyers
to escort Churchill as far as Iceland on the return voyage.
Roosevelt's son was aboard one of them. This photograph shows
Churchill striding the deck of the British battleship Prince
of Wales.

Churchill Meets Roosevelt

On August 9, 1941, Churchill met Roosevelt on board the
U.S.S. Augusta, beginning the pattern of high-level
personal collaboration that would prevail until the end of
the war. The two had actually met once before in 1918, a
meeting Churchill had since forgotten. In this photo Roosevelt
stands unaided, relying on hidden leg braces. In later, more
widely publicized photographs, he is seen supported by his
son Elliott, an Air Force officer—a reminder that Roosevelt,
like Churchill, had a personal, family stake in the conflict.

Sunday Services During the Atlantic Conference

Under the camouflage-striped guns of the British battleship Prince
of Wales—soon to be sunk with heavy loss of life—Churchill
and Roosevelt attended Sunday services during the Atlantic
Conference. In one of the great symbolic moments of the
war, military leaders and sailors of both nations mingled
together to sing the hymns that Churchill had personally
selected. He wrote later, “Every word seemed to stir the
heart. It was a great hour to live.”

The Atlantic Charter

The most publicized result of the Newfoundland meeting,
the Atlantic Charter, set forth the war aims of the two nations.
In addition to committing the U.S. and Britain against territorial
aggrandizement, it also pledged their adherence to principles
of peace, national self-determination, and freedom of the
seas. It further outlined their obligation to freedom from “fear
and want,” open access (within limits) to trade and raw materials,
improved labor standards, disarmament of aggressor nations,
and “a wider and permanent system of general security.” Churchill
gave this next-to-last draft version to Averell Harriman
as a souvenir.

Hitler Moves East

Germany went to war with the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941,
easing the pressure on the British and giving them renewed
hope. In October 1941, Averell Harriman noted Churchill's
opinion that “Hitler's revised plan undoubtedly is now, Poland
'39, France '40, Russia '41, England '42, '43 (?)—maybe
America.” Late in November, Churchill acknowledged the heavy
demands made by the Soviets for American supplies but also
asked for Harriman's assistance in providing him with additional
ammunition. Churchill's postscript reads, “The razor is a
joy diurnal,” a reference to a gift received from Harriman.

Women in Combat

Britain set an example for the United States by mobilizing
its women for war. This letter to Averell Harriman is from
Churchill's daughter Mary, who had joined the Auxiliary Territorial
Service and served with an antiaircraft unit: “Tomorrow I
go back to my regiment—and I feel a little sad to leave
Mummie and Papa; but I have no regrets—and I know now that
(for once!) my first emotion about joining up was right.”